Description
Book SynopsisAlong the Bolivian Highway traces the emergence of a new middle class in Bolivia, a society commonly portrayed as the site of struggle between a superwealthy white minority and a destitute indigenous majority. Miriam Shakow shows how Bolivian middle classes have deeply shaped politics and social life. While national political leaders like Evo Morales have proclaimed a new era of indigenous power and state-led capitalism in place of racial exclusion and neoliberal free trade, Bolivians of indigenous descent who aspire to upward mobility have debated whether to try to rise within their country''s longstanding hierarchies of race and class or to break down those hierarchies. The ascent of indigenous politics, and a boom in coca and cocaine production beginning in the 1970s, have created dilemmas for middling Bolivians who do not fit the prevailing social binaries of white elite and indigenous poor. In their family relationships, political activism, and community life, the new mi
Trade Review
"Shakow has produced a fascinating and beautifully written ethnography that explores the question: 'What might postneoliberalism look like?' In her portrayal of upwardly mobile urban indigenous Bolivians, out go polarized constructions of the social categories class and ethnicity. Instead we see an indigenous middle class dynamically shaped by effects of the coca boom, free-market government reforms, and different interpretations of Evo Morales's state socialism. Shakow shows us the work world of this heterogeneous labor force and their debates about social transformation, clientelism, and commitments to new sorts of collective action. This is a pathbreaking, theoretically sophisticated ethnography that is an exciting, very accessible read." * Kay Warren, Brown University *
"This detailed and insightful ethnography focuses on the ambiguities and complexities of race, class, and political-economic transformation in the Bolivian middle classes, which are often ignored in studies of power and resistance." * Bret Gustafson, Washington University in St. Louis *
"Along the Bolivian Highway draws upon rich ethnographic research to document changes in class and other civic sensibilities across a dramatic period of change in contemporary Bolivian society." * Andrew Orta, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign *
Table of Contents
Note on Language
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Formation of a New Middle Class
Chapter 2. The Intimate Politics of New Middle Classes in Sacaba
Chapter 3. Middling Sacabans Respond to Evo and MAS
Chapter 4. Condemning Clientelism
Chapter 5. Laments of Betrayal
Chapter 6. Middle Classes and Debates over the Definition of Community
Conclusion
Notes
Family Tree of Doña Saturnina Ramírez
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
